


An Approximation of Mercy (Makes a God a Man)

by Anonymous



Series: The Ashes We Create (Burn the Gods to the Ground) [2]
Category: 100 Player Experiments - Fandom, 100 Player Videos, Dream SMP - Fandom, Video Blogging RPF, Wilbur Soot - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Gods, It's a crossover au, Kind of? Ish?, kind of a continuation, kind of an AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:55:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27661676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: His mercy was the end, the end of all things. That was all it had ever been.(What didn't he recall?)
Relationships: Dave | Technoblade & Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit & Phil Watson, No romance or you shall perish by the threads, Sleepy Bois Inc - Relationship
Series: The Ashes We Create (Burn the Gods to the Ground) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2022643
Comments: 11
Kudos: 119
Collections: Anonymous





	An Approximation of Mercy (Makes a God a Man)

**Author's Note:**

> In honor of ghostbur, and the complications of his 100 player videos. 
> 
> As with all my oneshots, I have a quick disclaimer: This is NOT a part of the "What World Have We Inherited series", which is my main fic-verse at the moment. 
> 
> This (and any work within "The Ashes We Create" series) fall more along the lines of canon compliant (strangely enough?) one shots that connect the 100 player videos to the events of the Dream SMP. It's just for fun, and has been placed in it's own series alongside my "anon works" collection. 
> 
> If you click on the second series this is connected to, you'll find the rest of my works. Since I post anonymously, I figured it would be easier to compile them all, but the only fics that are connected to one another are in separate series. 
> 
> Please enjoy! Comments, kudos, and feedback of any sort are greatly appreciated.

* * *

He wasn't sure when things changed. He wasn't sure if they even had. 

He had long since left them behind, the pitiful ones. The singularity that tried his patience and his attention, those that whimpered and begged and reached with skeletal hands for a mercy that would not come. His mercy was the end, the end of all things. 

_(It had been. That was his mercy. How could it ever be anything different?)_

His fingertips glittered with power, shimmered like enchanted books as he wove strings around their exhausted limbs. _Build,_ he commanded, _burn,_ he ordered. _Subjugate yourselves and perhaps I may offer sustenance._

Cruelty grew to a language, attention to violence and order. He cackled until his eyes ached, and wasn't that something grand? The only thing that could harm him was his own mirth — the glee that bled from his action as they fell like harmless flies at his feet, piles upon piles of hapless Icarus imitators that scooped up wax by the handfuls. Forgetful, quiet, idealistic. 

_(Desperate. They had always been desperate, nothing more. He refused to see it, but that didn't mean a thing.)_

Worlds rose and fell at the wave of his hand, crumbled and built and crumbled again until he tired of them, until he reached down with an ichor coated hand and pulled one rat from the pile, one man from the masses. He pulled him to the sky and wrapped his golden strings, gave him enough of it to weave his own tapestry. The others called him foolish, mocked his cocky nature. Even Tommy, in his newness and eagerness to react, looked at him so strangely the day Josh arrived. Gilded and glittering and bleeding with power he made his own. 

_(Wilbur knew. A part of him knew. A part of him wanted Josh to weave his gifted golden threads until they were strong enough to sever him from his own.)_

Wilbur built. He dragged and built and tortured and laughed, fingertips smearing ashen coal alongside dirt and gold. He relished and he played, and he watched with shimmering eyes as dead eyes champions rose from his wretched ranks. 

He wasn't sure when it stopped being fun. When the laughter melted into something plastic, something that made his face shine and his body ache. He reached out and the world crumbled in a pile of dust, and he mocked them and he broke their signs. He starved them, and he laughed, and he didn't feel a thing. He didn't feel a thing, not even when one man rose up without the "help" of Wilbur's golden threads. Not even when that man dragged others to the skies with him, eyes defiant and gaze set on the horizon. 

_(Not true. It stopped being true a long time ago.)_

* * *

They gathered. 

It had been a terribly long time, and yet it hadn't been long at all. 

His brothers, one unreadable the other an open book. His father, expression deviously kind, hellishly soft. Genuine only to three, genuine only to those he deemed worthy. 

Wilbur. The false prophet amidst gods, old and new. Glittering with gold gilded strings, wrapped so tight around his fingertips he swore they'd turn blue. 

_(It would be nice to see another color for once.)_

He smiled and it felt like plastic, and his family smiled back. 

They made another world, and Wilbur set down the flames. 

* * *

It went like the rest. 

_(Not all. Not every single one.)_

TNT burst into flames, bedrock dragged itself up from the depths of hell and cemented itself at their command. The people starved and they begged and they pleaded, and nothing ever _changed._

Wilbur watched as his brothers tore through the time, watched as one covered a champion in netherite and the other sent them flying to the skies. He watched and he laughed and he felt nothing at all, and he missed the expression burned into his father's searching eyes. 

They ran. They pleaded, they worshipped and begged. Some built, faster than even they could break. 

_(Talent wasted, they could place things above the heads of simple men.)_

Wilbur stared while his brothers delighted, watched as one turned it all to dynamite and the other turned them to ash. 

* * *

There was a treehouse. 

Wilbur flew there first, eyes trained on the little human who'd made a tree a home. The human bustled around, oblivious but for the ever encroaching weight of the life they'd been condemned to. They'd made armour, they'd made torches. Wilbur watched through new windows, pressed invisible hands to the glass and watched as they worked. 

The human made signs. 

_My tree house,_ they carved, in neat, slightly shaky letters; _I don't need food. Just peace._

 _(They all begged. They all pleaded, they all reached up with starving hands. They all begged, right up until they did not. Until they realized the fragility of Wilbur's gold gilded strings, and they snapped them with a twist of their sword and a bright, defiant, "no.")_

The human dusted off the sign, brushed away the wood shavings and smiled their weary smile. They pushed open their door and hung it above their home, like a smear of blood above their doorframe. 

Wilbur stared. 

_(My treehouse.)_

He stared and he watched and he saw them build futile homes in a world destined to die, and he wondered how much longer he planned to go on this way. How long did he plan to stand here, pretend that the ache came from thirst for satisfaction instead of..?

_(I don't need food.)_

The human inside propped up a tiny sapling, curled in gentle hands and pressed into a small pot. Preserved. Delicate. It would be doomed outside, dwarfed by its brethren and left to die and wither without the gift of the sun. It was a lost cause. It was useless, a pointless object that had no chance against the human's fist. They could crush it if they pleased, if they wished to. They could wrap it up in silver string and slice it right down the center. They could be cruel, and the sapling would crumble like deadened dust. 

The human patted the leaves. They poured a bit of their water to the allotted soil, precious and rare. 

Kind. 

_(Just peace.)_

A flash of pink. Then red. Then green. 

Wilbur whirled around with eyes wider than they should be, but his family said nothing. Tommy flew in wide circles, and Wilbur could practically taste the acid of ash and sulfur in the air. Techno floated in place with his hand cradled around a mound of glittering powder, and Wilbur could hear the crack of bones. 

_(His father did nothing. Stood with his wings held aloft and his impossible eyes, judgement in his hands as he watched them all with pained fondness.)_

He wasn't sure when they dropped the guise, but he knew that the human saw them when they dropped their watering can. They threw themselves out the door and slammed it shut behind them, armour glittering and useless. 

Wilbur saw Technoblade raise his weapon a moment before he saw the human go flying, and his breath caught like a spike in his throat. 

_("My treehouse", the sign read in neat, slightly shaky letters. "I don't need food. Just peace.")_

He twitched. 

The human stumbled back, limping and breathless and wincing with every step, but they came back to where they were. They approached. 

_(Back to their treehouse, back to their home. No food. Just peace.)_

Techno's arm moved again. 

_"Wait—"_ Wilbur's voice was a whisper. Too late, too quiet. The human went flying and he heard an audible crack. 

They laid limp for a moment, shook in place before they slowly pushed themselves up again. A new sign appeared in their hands, and Wilbur's eyes widened as they made their way back. As they stumbled and winced and flinched but kept _walking,_ and for what? 

They planted the sign with shaking fingers, reached for a small carving blade. 

_(Just peace.)_

Techno's weapon raised again, and the human flinched, shook their head with muted terror as their shaking hands frantically moved to carve a message they wouldn't be able to finish. 

_(Peace.)_

Wilbur moved in a blur, grabbed at Techno's arms and threw them aside. His brother barely budged, but his muscles tensed with what Wilbur knew was surprise. He was surprised too, as he threw his body before the human. 

"Techno — wait, just… Techno just spare them," he knew he was breathless and he knew he was strange. 

_(His hypocrisy burned like acid in his throat. He thought of signs. Mounted signs on grass blocks, turned to dynamite with a flick of his wrist, a tug of the strings.)_

Techno stared at him like he'd grown a second head — no, worse. 

"Techno, please — please stop, just stop, just…" 

_Like he'd lost his mind._

The _thunk_ of a sign. 

_(My treehouse. I don't need food. Just peace.)_

They all turned at once, and the human knelt beside the sign with heaving breaths and their arms cradled to their ribs. 

_Subscribe to Technoblade,_ the sign read. The letters were near illegible. 

The human gave a small, shaking smile, a weak trembling sapling in the rage of a storm, a joke whispered to the ears of uncaring gods, and Wilbur… 

_Oh._

He felt something snap him in two, felt something unspool the tangles of the golden wires that strung up his soul. Something snapped and he fell, and gold ran from his eyes like a waterfall. 

_Oh god,_ he wondered, _what had he done?_

* * *

_He was simply unlucky, that particular mole. He happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Wilbur was itching to see what isolation could do to a mortal._

_He was simply unlucky, that new particular mole. He was cocky and new and he dared to challenge him, and wasn't that just quaint? Something about a friend, about mortal vengeance and useless emotions. The god cackled and he rolled his eyes and he made the ground turn to dust, but he gave the little mole his duel._

_(How, how did he do this, how dare he, HOW—)_

_He was simply unlucky, that new particular mole. Bloodied and exhausted from a battle he never asked for, coated in red, and that was so, so different from the gold._

_He was simply unlucky, that old particular mole. But he was clever too, knew how to take the strings and cut them on the edge of his sword with a sharp grin carved on the steel of agony._

_A god lost to a mole. To a man._

_(What did that mean?)_

* * *

Wilbur stared until he couldn't anymore, drowned in the gold and regret. 

What had he done, what had he done, what had he done? 

He felt steady hands on his shoulders as his vision was enveloped by green, and he dug his ashen fingers into the back of his father's robe. A whisper, pressed to his head with a crack in his voice. The world fell away behind him, a void left by unsteady hands. He sobbed, and that felt so strange — when did he regain his lungs? He looked at his hands where they dug into his father's cloak, and they were a blur of grey instead of flesh, and… 

Why was he crying? Where was he again?

The arms tightened around him. The arms of his _father,_ it was his father and he couldn't forget it. Things began to blur and he didn't know where he was, but he burned the knowledge into his brain.

His father whispered whilst the memories shuddered, gasped and died behind his eyes. He didn't even know what he was mourning, nor why his tears refused to stop. 

_"Welcome back, Wilbur."_

* * *

  
  
  



End file.
